Papal power

POPE ALEXANDER VI kneels in awed contemplation, hands joined in prayer, head bare, papal tiara at his feet, as Christ, freed from the shackles of mortality, rises from the sepulchre in a triumph of golden light. The Resurrection— one of the many works painted by Pinturicchio (1454–1513) for the Borgia apartment in Rome’s papal palace—celebrated at once the glory of God incarnate and that of the highest Catholic authority on earth. Despite the Pope’s humble pose, his gold-encrusted robe is a reminder of the very temporal magnificence of the incumbent, Rodrigo de Borja, so assured in his power that he not only kept mistresses in defiance of the Church’s celibacy rules, but also had children, whom he elevated to dukes, duchesses and cardinals. Rather less obvious is the significance of a group of dancing men in the background, naked but for their feathered headdresses, which only became clearly visible after Pinturicchio’s work was cleaned about 10 years ago. The late Antonio Paolucci, a former director of the Vatican Museums, suggested at the time that they could be the first depiction of Native Americans in European art. The Pope, noted Paolucci, was fascinated by the Americas and may have asked Pinturicchio to paint the men based on Christopher Columbus’s description— perhaps as a chronicle of his times (Borgia had ascended to the pontifical throne only a few months before the explorer landed on the Bahamian island of Guanahani in 1492 and Pinturicchio most likely completed the frescos in 1494). Not that many people ever got to see the men or the rest of The Resurrection. The Borgia apartment was the Pope’s private suite and, after Alexander VI died in 1503, Julius II, horrified by his predecessor’s moral decadence, abandoned it. Over the centuries, it only played host to the odd cardinal, until Pope Leo XIII opened it to the public at the end of the 19th century.